A Debutante's Guide to Rebellion Read Online Free PDF

going to happen? He’d turn around and come back in to the dance?”
    â€œNothing I could have done after that would have made a difference,” Eddie said. “Mother was going to be disappointed in me regardless. She always is.”
    â€œBecause you don’t try,” John said.
    â€œI do. I try, and I fail. And she likes it that way. I don’t think she’d know what to do if I proved competent at something.”
    John sat beside her on the couch and frowned. “At least you got to dance,” he said.
    â€œIt was actually a bit . . . fun,” Eddie allowed. “I enjoyed myself, until the Lord Averdale Disaster.”
    â€œMore like the Debutante Debacle,” John said, nudging her with his shoulder.
    â€œThe Marigold Mayhem?” Eddie suggested.
    â€œThe Frantic Frock Foofaraw.”
    â€œNow you’re just being silly,” Eddie scolded, and gave a sniff. Her incipient tears were in retreat, at least.
    â€œIt was good practice,” he said. “He’s a good stepping stone.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œA stepping stone. He’s so damn awkward it won’t matter what you do around him. You can use him as practice, and to put Averdale off. He won’t court you if he thinks you’re interested in his nephew.”
    â€œI don’t want to put Averdale off,” Eddie said, horrified.
    â€œHe’s fat and old.”
    â€œHe’s the best I’m ever going to do.”
    â€œThat’s just Mother talking,” John said.
    â€œYou’re the one who was agreeing with her earlier,” Eddie snapped.
    â€œI wasn’t agreeing. Just suggesting that you try to keep her happy,” John said.
    â€œAnd you’re not being kind to Mr. Blackwood. He was charming.”
    â€œOh, please. The man’s barely warm-blooded. He’s some kind of lizard in human clothing, I swear,” John said, half laughing. “One time—”
    â€œShut
up
,” Eddie said. She stood. “You are being cruel. And I am quite familiar with such cruelties, as I endure them on a regular basis. He’s strange and awkward and wordy, and I’m ugly and clumsy and stuck-up.”
    â€œYou’re not stuck-up.”
    â€œEveryone thinks so, since I’m not allowed to talk to them, on account of my profound lack of wit,” Eddie said. She crossed her arms and glared at him. “I’m going to bed. And I don’t want to hear you say anything bad about Mr. Blackwood again, do you hear me?”
    He laughed. “Fine. Whatever you wish, darling sister. You always did have strange taste.”
    â€œSometimes I think you’re as bad as they are,” she said, and stormed out of the room.
    ***
    Ezekiel collapsed into an armchair in the drawing room with a groan, removing his spectacles so that he could pinch the bridge of his nose. “That was a disaster,” he said.
    â€œIt wasn’t a disaster,” Sophie chided him, curling up in her favorite seat opposite. Her parents had passed a few years prior, and she had lived with their uncle ever since. Ezekiel had entertained fantasies of her coming to live with
him
, but he could not blame her for choosing Lord Averdale’s guardianship over his father’s. “You danced. With someone other than
me
. I would think I had been dreaming, if there weren’t so many witnesses.”
    â€œIt’s not as if it’s the first time.”
    â€œYes, but all the other times I had to bully you into it,” Sophie said. “This time you only needed coaxing. It’s progress.”
    â€œI don’t see why you should insist on the endeavor at all,” Ezekiel said. “I have no need of dancing, or of speaking with women. I intend to devote my life to my studies. I don’t need any female companionship for that.”
    â€œOh, please. You’d be an intellectual pauper without me,” Sophie said, tossing her head.